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C^ORGIATECH VOL 66 NO 2 A l u m n i Magaz ine FALL 1990

STAFF John C. Dunn, editor Gary Goettling, associate

editor Gary Meek. Margaret Barrett

photography Everett Hullum, design Wayne Parker, advertising

PUBUCAHONS COMMITTEE L. Gordon Sawyer '46,

chairman George A. Stewart Jr. '69

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine is published quarterly for Roll Call contributors by the Georgia Tech AhiDDii Association. . Send correspondence and changes of address to-. GEORGIA TKCII ALUMNI MAGAZINE Alumni, faculty House 225 North Avenue NW Atlanta. GA 30332-0175 Editorial: <i()4) 894-4646 Advertising: (404) 894-2391 Fax: (40-D 894-5113

On the Cover: Craig Anderson is "mad" because loo many school-age children think science is dull. He's out to prove them wrong. Read about his efforts, beginning on page 36. Photo by Gary Meek

CONTENTS /,(

Waste Not, Want Not .?. Tech scientists are exploring ways to turn today's garbage into tomorrow's worthwhile by-products. • Written by John Toon

Battle of the Byte A Tech grad tackles "computerphobia" in the marketplace. Written by Gary Goettling

Dream Makers: Part B , An encore of inventors from Tech. • Written by John Dunn

1 2

22

27

Georgia Tech's "Mad" Scientist 36 Craig Anderson is angry that students aren't taught more about science and math—and he's doing something about it. • Written by John Dunn

DEPARTMENTS

Letters 5 Defending Nunn and Carter; black students assocation questioned.

Technote s 7 Roll Call goal; alumni dance; Summerscape; seeking a '90s renaissance; summer camp for Buzz; Arthur Murray at Tech; an AIDS program.

Research 45 The importance of trees; robots; exploring feelings; fiber-reinforced plastics.

T e c h n o l o g y Transfer 4 8 Chemical vapor deposition; semiconductor electron wave devices.

Profile 50 Charles Muench: The color of money.

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GEORGIA TECH • Contents 3

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JETTERS

Despite Setbacks, a Positive Influence Editor:

In the summer issue of the alumni magazine, two letters were published, both critical of Sen. Sam Nunn's comments about Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

It would be in order to register the fact that some of us agree totally with

GEC)i<caA

Sen. Nunn, and believe that Carter was a far more positive influence on this country than Reagan. De­spite his setbacks as presi­dent, Carter's devotion to humanitarian causes as an ex-president totally eclipses Reagan's obsessive acquisition of wealth.

Frank W. Smith, EE '47 Chattanooga, Tenn.

A Question of Liability? Editor:

A "TechNotes" item an­nouncing the chartering of a Black Graduate Student Association appeared in the summer issue.

I worked for the federal government for many years. I think I understand civil rights laws very well. But I believe that black

graduates have no right to organize an association restricted to color or race. Furthermore, the magazine has no right to publicize their organization.

I encourage you to re­search your legal liability under civil rights laws for publicizing this organiza­tion. I am quite sure that you would be quickly at­tacked if you announced the formation of a "White Graduate Student Associa­tion" to promote the suc­cess of only white Tech graduates.

Having been equally accepted into any and all activities and organizations at Tech, why should black graduates need to organize an exclusive association?

Beryl Grubaugh, BS '50 Scottsdale, Ariz.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Tuwaner Hudson-Lamar, co-founder oftheBGSA, responds: "Although the purpose of the Black Graduate Stu­dent Association is to serve as a support group for a group of students who are sparsely spread throughout the Georgia Tech commu­nity, membership is not re­stricted to 'color or race.' Article 111, Section 1 of its bylaws state: Any Georgia Tech student shall be eli­gible for full membership in theBGSA.'"

GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI

MAGAZINE welcomes letters from readers. Send corre­spondence to Editor, GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI

MAGAZINE, Alumni/Faculty House, 225 North Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30332-0175.

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GEORGIA TECH • Letters 5

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-trut RoUGdb $44MiIHonGoal Georgia Tech's 44th

Annual Alumni Roll Call kicks off its 1990-91 fiscal year with a $4.4 mil­lion campaign goal.

Frank H. Maierjr., IM '60, vice president for Roll Call, says more than 1,000 volunteers will be involved in the Roll Call campaign.

The annual Roll Call supports academics at Georgia Tech, creating op­portunities for President John P. Crecine to intro­duce special initiatives not possible otherwise because of restrictions on the use of state money, explains John B. Carter Jr.. IE '69, Alumni Association vice president and executive director.

Roll Call money is used to award student scholar­ships, including Presiden­tial scholars and fellows, to fund research centers and recruiting facilities, to ac­quire equipment for faculty and staff, and to support alumni programs, clubs, publications and special events, Carter states.

The theme of the drive is "Roll Call is making a world of difference," says Stacey Sapp, IMGT '80, Alumni Association direc­tor of Roll Call.

"Roll Call makes a big difference at Tech in many ways," Sapp says. "For ex­ample, it has funded more than 330 scholarships for

top students during the past three years, assisted" more than 155 faculty members purchase com­puters, and provided the

development of under­graduate instructional cen­ters and laboratories in electronics and manufac­turing." •

SciTrek Swinging On Friday night, Oct. 26, the best dance party in

town may be at SciTrek, the science museum of Atlanta, where the Swinging Medallions will perform in concert for Georgia Tech alumni and friends.

The event, which begins at 7 p.m. and runs until midnight, is a collective reunion for the classes of 1970, 1975, 1980 and 1985, but all alumni are invited to attend, according to Gail White, director of pro­grams for the Alumni Association. The cost of $18.50 per person includes admission to the show and hors d'oeuvres. A cash bar will also be available.

For more information call White or Beth Bates at the Alumni Association, (404) 894-2391.

Technotes continued page i

Olympics At Tech

The 1996 summer Olym­pics, which were awarded to Atlanta on Sept. 18 by a vote of the International Olympic Committee, will leave an indelible mark on Georgia Tech.

The campus will serve as the Olympic Village for the event, set for July 20-Aug. 6. 1996. Tech will benefit from a new resi­dence hall and other facili­ties that will be built for the event.

The next Tech Topics will contain a section de­scribing Tech's important role in the Olympics.

Buzz holds an Olympic torch while Georgia Tech students and staff cheer from the elevated walkway over North Avenue.

GEORGIA TECH • Technotes 7

T « T 7 i pLOtNOTrS

Seeking Renaissance for the '90s Former President Jimmy

Carter, architect John Portman, and Steven Jobs, the founder of Apple Corp., are featured speak­ers at EDUCOM's confer­ence on information tech­nology hosted by Georgia Tech on Oct. 14-17 at Inforum in Atlanta.

The theme of the con­ference is "Preparing for the Renaissance: Comput­ing and Communications for Technology, Science and the Arts." EDUCOM is a non-profit consortium of more than 600 colleges and universtities concerned with computing and com­munications issues in higher education.

Carter, Cls '46, will ad­dress the role of the U.S. and its universities con­cerning global communica­tions. Portman, BS '50, will speak about the vision of

From Page 7

Summer Camp Champ

Former President Carter

an architect, and Jobs, president and founder of NeXT, will speak on inter­personal computing for the decade ahead. Other fea­tured speakers are Robert Allen, chairman and CEO of AT&T, and Donna Cox, a computer artist and asso­ciate professor at the Na­tional Center for Supercomputing Applica­tions and University of Illi­nois, Urbana-Champaign.

Program chair John Gehl of Tech's College of Computing said EDUCOM '90 will have sessions deal­ing with issues of policy, management, instruction, and research and technical development.

For a week this past summer, the campus

of East Tennessee State looked like the staging area for a cartoon zoo when dozens of brightly colored lions, tigers, turtles, birds and other species of college mascot converged on the Johnson City, Tenn., university.

The occasion was the annual summer camp for collegiate cheerleading squads and mascots. And when it was over, the more than 80 mascots at­tending the camp had voted Georgia Tech's in­imitable Buzz the best. The instructors who run the camp held their own elec­tion for the best mascot, and once again Buzz flew away with the honor.

Unlike most college mascots, the physical de­mands of playing Buzz are

such that two people, each clad in identical costumes, alternate in the role at most sports events. This year, students Tynis Royal and David Piech share the job.

"No one is supposed to know the difference be­tween the two Buzzes," says Bobby Williams, cheerleading coach and spirit coordinator. "Tyrus and David spend a lot of time learning to act and walk exactly alike."

Tecbnotes continued page 11

Georgia Tech Alumni Association Board Officers Trustees Shirley C, Mevvborn EE '56

president Oliver 11. Sale Jr. ME '56

past president John C. Staton Jr. IM '60

president-elect 'treasurer 11. Hammond StitH |r. CE'58

rice president, act/rides G. William Knight IE '62, MSIM '08

rice president comtnuniaUons Frank H. Mater Jr. IM '60

rice president Roll Call fohn B. Cartel |r. 11' '60

rice president 'executive director James M. Langley

rice president

Kay Elizabeth Adams IMGT '74 Theodore Arno 11 TEXT '49 James D. Blitch 111 IE '53 Stanley 1„ Daniels ARC! 1 '60 II. Guy Darnell )r. IM'65 Joseph T. Dyer IE'69 Edwin C. EcklesARCH '52 Jack J. Eaussemagne IM '65 Frank B. F'ortson EE 71 Albert E. Gandy IE '56 Don I>. Giddens AE '63, MSAE '65,

l'HD'67 fereW. Goldsmith IV IM '56 Thomas B. Gurley EE '59

, Hubert 1.. HarrisJr IM '65

of Trustees P. Owen Herrin [r. IM 70 Brian D. HogglM '61 G. Paul Jones Jr. ME '52 [venue Love-Stanley ARCH 7 Jay M. McDonald IM '68 Thomas 11. Muller Jr. IE'63 Michael Percy CLS '68 Patrise M. Perkins-Hooker IMGT '80 James Richard Roberts III IM '60 Louis Gordon Sawyer Sr. NS '46 W. Clayton Sparrow Jr. PHI'S '68 Francis N. Spears III CE 73, MM E '80 George A. Stewart Jr. AE '69 11. Milton Stewart lr. IE '61 1 (award T. Tellepsen Jr. CE '66 S.Joseph Ward IM '51

8 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

/ 3

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Tuition at Georgia Tech turned out to be one of your best investments; now, make a good investment in the future of Georgia Tech through the Charitable Life program.

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To receive your application for your special Georgia Tech VISA or Mastercard, call the Alumni Association. Then show off your Tech colors every time you use your credit card. 404/894-2391

TUdHNOTBS From Page <

Dancing the Night Away m ,'orbes magazine, in its

JL "Flashbacks" section, turned up a 70-year-old glimpse < >f Georgia Tech student Arthur Murray that appeared in the publica­tion's April 17, 1920 issue. James C. Ryan, EE '37, of New Orleans, called it to our attention.

"When 1 announced that I had decided to give up my S 100-a-week job to

return to college, my fam­ily and friends ridiculed the idea, impressing upon me that my brains were all in my feet," Murray is quoted. "They said I was

foolish to become a fresh­man at college again. I dia not heed their advice [and] enrolled as a student in the commerce department of the Georgia School of

Technology. I am now a sophomore and am teach­ing dancing during spare hours. For the past year this work on the side has brought me $15,000."

Aid for AIDS: Tech Plans Education Program

To find ont what happening: at Georgia lech, call the 2'/-hour Buzz Hotline,

Acquired Immune Defi-I J L ciency Syndrome (AIDS) may not monopo­lize headlines today, but the deadly condition re­mains a serious public health concern.

At Georgia Tech, Presi­dent John P. Crecine has appointed a committee to

study the present and future impact of AIDS on the Tech community, and to develop a campus-wide approach to dealing with the disease.

The committee's recom­mendations include an education program di­rected at students, faculty

and staff. Such a broad-based program is believed to be the first of its kind among Georgia universi­ties.

Details about the pro­gram will be presented in a future issue of Tech Topics. •

The [he Ballroom at our grand hotel debuts January 1991. Downtown, in the heart of Atlanta. Boasting 6,500 sq.ft. of magnificent meeting space, elegantly appointed with crystal chan­deliers, fine art and antiques. Gourmet cuisine prepared expressly by our catering staff. A conference concierge to take care of all the details. And, of course, uncompro­mising personal service. For more information please call 404-659-0400 or 800-241-3333, toll-free. We'll put you up where you belong.

THERITZ-CARLTON ATLANTA

Waste Not, Want Not . . . Before Earth evolves into a giant trash bag, Georgia Tech seeks solutions to the planet's waste problems

Written by John Toon Photographed by Joe Schwartz Illustration by Joe DiNicola

•

s a nation, we re a wasteful bunch. We cook our microwave din­ners, then toss the box, cellophane wrapper and silver crisping tray into the trash. We wash our leftover pesticides down the drain, use products manufactured with hazardous materi­als, and flip on air conditioners run by electric powerplants that generate millions of tons of coal ash each year. Our eating habits leave food processing companies with mountains of organic waste.

Decades of this throwaway lifestyle have filled our landfills, contaminated groundwater supplies, fouled waterways, and left former industrial areas piled high with things we no longer want. We have finally found, as one news magazine recently explained, that there is no "away" anymore.

For the decade of the 1990s, two symbols may be fitting. One might be New York's infa­mous "garbage barge," its international odyssey in search of a dumping place, dramatically il­lustrating our solid waste problem. The other could be a simple trademark: three arrows completing a loop of recycling, reprocessing and re-use, showing how one person's waste becomes another person's resource.

Whichever symbol history uses to record the 1990s depends on people such as Bob Bachus, Mike Saunders, Wendall Cross, Jim Walsh, Tom Tomabene, Eugene Ashby and others. As Georgia Tech researchers, they are applying technology to waste issues we once thought we could ignore.

Solving the Problem by Not Creating It

1 he most effective way to deal with the haz­ardous waste problem is not to produce it in the first place," says Dr. John Nemeth, director of the Environmental Sciences and Technology Laboratory (ESTL) at Georgia Tech.

Though not workable in all industries, ef­forts to reduce wastes at their source can pay big dividends. One example is the oil-based paints used in metal-finishing operations. Cleaning the paint sprayers requires solvents that must be disposed of as hazardous wastes, posing costly disposal problems. But some metal finishers have successfully switched to

Continued page 15

1 2 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

Ik

I

LI

latex-based paint, allowing water to be used in cleaning the sprayer without creating a hazard­ous waste.

"They have to look at what they are doing and decide if they can use another material," explains Jim Walsh, senior research engineer in the ESTL. "You find another way to do it so you won't generate hazardous waste in the first place."

Through Georgia's Environmental Protection Division. Tech recently won two grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to carry out "pollution prevention" audits for Georgia industries, conduct demonstrations and help train EPD inspectors on pollution pre­vention.

Carpet companies make strong contribu­tions to Georgia's economy, but the dyes they use could pose pollution problems. Dr. Wayne Tincher and others in the School of Textile and Fiber Engineering have worked for years on techniques to help the industry reduce pollu­tion by recycling rather than discarding dye baths. Dye bath re-use cuts pollution by one-third while reducing the amounts of energy, water and chemicals used.

After dyeing a batch of carpet, the used dye bath is analyzed for its remaining chemical content. With the help of a computer, that con­tent is compared to the "recipe" needed for the next batch. The missing chemicals are replen­ished, and the bath used again. In tests, says Tincher. a single dye bath was used 17 times.

Waste or Resource? A New Perepective

Kesearchers in the School of Biology have pat­ented a reactor which generates methane gas as it digests food- and beverage-processing wastes, solving a waste problem and providing a renewable source of fuel that could help conserve fossil fuels.

Variability of the waste stream is one of the significant problems facing any waste technol­ogy based on biological activity. If waste con­centrations are too low, the microbes may not have enough nutrients to live. If waste concen­trations are too high, the population of mi­crobes may not be large enough to efficiently process the wastes.

Dr. Thomas Tornabene and Dr. Jack Jones have developed a hybrid reactor designed to accommodate these fluctuations. For high con-

Y centrations, the anaerobic reactor uses a tradi­tional "flocculated bed" in which the sediment and accumulation of microbes fall to the bot­tom of the vessel. For lower concentrations, the reactor passes the wastes through a film of immobilized cells designed to handle those levels of nutrients. Working together, the two methods can remove up to 98 percent of the waste materials which cause biological oxygen demand for rivers and streams.

Variability of waste constituents can also be a problem. Dr. Tornabene says the reactors and microbes must be tailored to the specific waste stream.

"We have a system that can take a waste stream, clean it up, and make products from it," he says. "The impact on cleaning up the environment is so compelling that we ought to make a major effort in this direction."

Millions of tons of coal must be burned each year to keep our electric lights burning, refrigerators and air conditioners humming, ovens cooking and washing machines running. But burning that coal leaves ash which can ac­count for up to 10 percent of fuel's original volume. Dr. Robert Bachus in Tech's School of Civil Engineering is helping a group of South­eastern utility companies find new uses for that ash, literally turning one person's waste into another person's resource.

"If you look at the constituents of these ma­terials, they would fall into the category of a mineral resource for silica and alumina," he explains. "We are trying to find beneficial uses for this material."

Because of its unique composition, coal ash is already widely used in concrete and Portland cement for construction. Highway departments in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi have dem­onstrated various uses of ash in highway con­struction projects. Producers of cement block, roofing shingles, bricks, asphalt paving and other building materials are examining the po­tential of coal ash in their products.

But before the material can be more widely used, certain obstacles must be overcome. These include the variability of ash from plant-to-plant (which is largely a function of coal type, and combustion conditions), the conser­vative attitude of the construction industry to­ward new materials, and the stigma of coal ash as a by-product or waste product.

Bachus believes the successful uses are Continued page 16

l-i

"The impact on cleaning up the enviroment is so com­pelling, we ought to make a major effort in that direction."

LEFT: Through a process of heating and compressing coal ash, Frank MacConochie creates a material resembling a ceramic, lighter than concrete.

GEORGIA TECH • The Garbage Dilemma 1 5

"We are pursuing a procedure that can't be done with principles we know."

UPPER RIGHT: Julie Cassels of Tech's Environ­mental Engi­neering pro­gram studies wastewater (far right} for arnnionia con­tent The pro­ject seeks to learn the bio­chemical pro­cesses that de­grade nitrogen compounds.

helping overcome these obstacles, leading utili­ties and end users to see coal ash as a valuable mineral resource with desirable properties.

The Municipal Waste Problem

Ihe ultimate destination for most of the trash we throw away is a landfill. But our nation's landfills are rapidly choking on the volume of this waste, while a combination of environ­mental concerns and costs prevent the con­struction of new landfills.

Researchers in Tech's Environmental Engi­neering Program have been studying a new kind of landfill that operates as its own treat­ment system. Instead of serving as a simple dumping ground, such a landfill would use biological processes to break down wastes in a process similar to a sewage treatment plant.

It works by recycling the leachate: liquids which collect at the bottom of a landfill as rain and other moisture percolate through it, ex­plains senior research scientist Dr. Wendall Cross. This leachate, carrying micro-organisms along with their food and nutrients, is pumped back to the landfill surface, recirculating the food and nutrients, which break down to make the degradation more uniform and complete.

Leachate recycling significantly accelerates the degradation of organic materials, breaking down in five years what takes 30 or 40 years in existing landfills. The rapid process may also produce commercial amounts of methane gas, partially offsetting its higher costs. A full-scale test landfill is beginning operation in Delaware and should provide more information about the concept.

Ideally, municipal landfills should not con­tain hazardous or toxic materials such as pesti­cides or metal sludges. Those materials do get into municipal landfills, however. Cross has

studied their effect on his test landfills, finding that they can retard the biological degradation process in the special leachate recycle landfills and stop it altogether in traditional landfills.

Despite their problems and the potential of resource recovery activities, incineratk >n and other disposal methods, Cross believes landfills will be part of solid waste disposal for years to come. But he says they will have to be de­signed, built and operated as waste treatment and recovery systems—more expensive than current landfill operations.

Over the past 20 years, federal clean water standards have forced cities to improve their wastewater treatment plants. New regulations will further toughen standards by requiring the removal of nitrogen and phosphoms com­pounds. Dr. Michael Saunders, professor and coordinator for the Environmental Engineering program in the School of Civil Engineering, is working with a Gwinnett County treatment fa­cility which is using some innovative engi­neering to meet tough standards for removing nitrogen-containing compounds.

Most municipal wastewater treatment plants release ammonia and nitrates into waterways. But through complex biochemical reactions with alternating aerobic and anaerobic mi­crobes, operators of the facility are manipulat­ing the process to eliminate both compounds, turning them into harmless nitrogen gas which is released into the air.

"What we are pursuing is a procedure that

1 6 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

we as engineers say can't be done by the sys­tem with the fundamental principles we know," he says. "We have some preliminary data showing that this could be a major ad­vance in the removal of nitrogen from waste­water."

How Do You Measure It?

1 ougher treatment standards require technol­ogy able to identify and measure chemical compounds at smaller and smaller concentra­tions. In 1986, chemistry Professor Dr. Richard Browner developed a device which interfaces two existing chemical analysis techniques— liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. The resulting device, dubbed "MAGIC" and marketed by the Hewlett-Packard Co., greatly expands chemical analysis capabilities. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is cur­rently developing a method for pesticide analy­sis using this technology.

Working with scientists from the University of Georgia, he more recently developed an in­terface to combine yet another detection tech­nique—infrared spectrometry. The second de­vice has been licensed but not yet marketed.

Innovative Disposal Techniques

Oince the potential cancer hazard of asbestos-containing materials became known, thousands of tons of the fireproofing material have been removed from buildings. Though the danger to building occupants may be eliminated, the as­bestos remains a hazard. It must be placed into special landfills which are costly and subject to closing by tough environmental regulations.

In a joint research effort with the U.S. Army's Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) and two private companies, Tech's C( instruction Research Center and the Georgia Tech Research Institute will be evalu­ating a novel method for destroying asbestos. The project will use a plasma-arc torch operat­ing at 2,000 degrees Celsius to melt the asbes­tos into a harmless glassy material.

"With plasma temperatures reaching up to 7,000 degrees Celsius, you can essentially melt anything," explains Dr. Louis Circeo, director of the center. "You can completely ionize, gasify or melt any materials in the plasma, breaking them down into their basic components."

The project could ultimately lead to a por­table torch unit which could be used on the site of an asbestos-removal project. Circeo also sees promise for using the plasma arc torch for destroying toxic wastes, reducing the volume of low-level radioactive wastes and vitrifying contaminated soil.

Groundwater contamination from spills of liquid chemicals or fuels has been a tough problem to solve. The chemicals and contami­nated groundwater may be pumped from the ground for treatment, but because the contami­nants may remain preferentially adsorbed to soil particles, pumping often provides only a partial solution.

In a project for the U.S. Geological Survey, Dr. Saunders has explored the possibilities of in-situ bio-remediation using microbes to treat the chemicals deep within the soil. Many strains of microbes can break down toxic materials such as gasoline, but deep in the soil the microbes may not have the oxygen and nutrients they need to grow.

The necessary oxygen and nutrients may be injected into the soil, but that could lead to harmful chemical reactions or encourage the growth of competing organisms which could clog the underground pores and stifle the ben­eficial organisms. Using samples of contami­nated soil and a laboratory device used for simulating subsurface conditions, Dr. Saunders and other scientists have been modeling the planned bio-remediation efforts. Their work could help match microbes and nutrient-addi­tion techniques to specific contamination prob­lems, giving environmental engineers another tool with which to fight pollution.

"We are providing the kind of research that is needed to apply this technique in practice," says Saunders. "We can test it without creating the problems of a full-scale test."

Continued page 18

Landfills will have to become waste treatment and recovery systems.

ABOVE LEFT: Kim

Gnoffo records data from experimental landfills operated to test leachate recy­cling tech­niques and assess the effect of toxic materials on biological degradation.

GEORGIA TECH* The Garbage Dilemma 1 7

Radioactive waste disposal requires an assessment of the potential for materials to move into ground­water aquifers.

RIGHT: A Tech researcher studies the radiation at a hazardous waste dump.

Poultry has become more and more popu­lar, replacing other meats on the dinner tables of health-conscious Americans. That's good news for Georgia's poultry industry. But the growing appetite for poultry also has a down side: more wastes from poultry houses and wastewater from processing plants.

The traditional method for treating these wastewaters is the dissolved-air-flotation sys­tem, a physical/chemical process that leaves "skimmings." Containing oils, grease and other leftovers from chicken processing, the protein-rich skimmings can often be rendered into chicken feed or used as fertilizers. But in some cases, they must be treated and disposed of as wastes.

Researchers in Tech's Agricultural Technol­ogy Research Program are developing an anaerobic-packed bed reactor, which uses mi­crobial action to treat the wastewater. Filled with chopped tires, which provide a home for the hard-working microbes, the reactors can process in 15 hours what requires 15 days in low-rate anaerobic systems, according to re­search engineer Chuck Ross. And compared to dissolved-air-flotation systems, they leave just one-tenth as much sludge for disposal.

As they develop the new reactors, the ATRP researchers are attempting to improve older dissolved-air-flotation systems developed to remove the skimmings from process water. Moreover, thermally enhanced de-watering sys­tems have been developed at Georgia Tech to reduce the volume of these waste skimmings by 50 percent. Removing enough water could permit the skimmings to be incinerated or used as fuel.

To handle litter and other wastes from poul­try houses, the researchers are studying a de­cidedly low-tech solution: old-fashioned composting.

Nuclear Wastes: A Long-Term Problem .<-

America's efforts to develop atomic weapons during the 1940s and 1950s generated large amounts of liquid radioactive wastes which have been stored in tanks awaiting proper dis­posal. Solidifying the wastes into inert glass for burial appears to be the most viable disposal option, and Georgia Tech researchers are help­ing make that process a reality.

Essential to the process is a chemical known

as sodium tetraphenylborate, which until re­cently was available only in small quantities. To meet the need for large amounts, a Georgia company known as AFF Inc. asked Dr. Eugene Ashby and Dr. Bill Tedder for help. The chem­ists studied several alternatives for synthesizing the chemical, and helped scale up a process for commercial production.

In April, AFF opened a chemical manufac­turing plant to produce 500,000 pounds of so­dium tetraphenylborate each year for the Sa­vannah River Plant's program aimed at solving the nuclear waste problem.

Once the glass is produced, it will be placed into much safer storage, and ultimately into permanent underground facilities designed to keep the radioactive materials from ever reach­ing the biosphere. But ensuring that the radio­active materials don't leach out of the glass re­quires tight process control in its fonnulation and mixing with the wastes—a difficult process because it occurs in a hostile environment of high temperature and extreme radiation.

Dr. Alfred Schneider, now professor emeri­tus in Tech's nuclear engineering and health physics program, invented a procedure for continuously monitoring the glass. A tiny he­lium bubble is injected into the molten mix­ture, and by measuring the time required for its travel through the mixture, Schneider can de­termine the viscosity and density of the glass. Knowing these key properties could help the operators ensure the quality of the glass.

Disposal of radioactive waste requires an assessment of the potential for the materials to move into groundwater aquifers over long pe­riods of time. Research by Dr. Geoffrey Eichholz, also a professor emeritus of nuclear engineering and health physics, suggests that fear may be exaggerated.

"The usual assumption is that radioactive materials are inevitably carried into the ground water and move with it into the water table," he says. "We have shown that this is not often an unrealistic model, but one that tends to overestimate the impact. Realistic movement is a lot smaller than a lot of models based on saturated soils would suggest."

Especially in clay soils, radioactive materials tend to adsorb to soil particles which hold them in place. And in areas such as the Savan­nah River Plant in South Carolina, the sandy soil does not retain water most of the time,

Continued page 20

1 8 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

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reducing the changes of long-term dissolution of wastes, he says.

Americans have often been accused of blindly placing their trust in technology to solve critical problems. But as Georgia Tech researchers continue their work on waste

avoidance, disposal, re-use and recycling as solutions to our mounting waste problems, perhaps that trust will turn out not to be greatly misplaced. •

John Toon is a writer in the Research Communica­tions Office of the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come (and How!)

Recycling makes good sense—and good dollars as it saves a future for the next generation

1 he occupants of three Georgia Tech buildings will find new folders on their desks this fall, but that won't mean more pa­perwork is on the way.

The folders will be part of a new recycling effort aimed at reducing the amount of com­puter and white office paper thrown away at Georgia Tech. The program, scheduled to spread campus-wide within a year, will be operated by a local company, Recycall Consulting Services Inc.

"There's not a lot of money to be made in recycling," says John Stone, director of Tech's Property Control Division. "But it's good for the environment, and that's why we are doing it."

Each occupant of the Admin­istration, Carnegie and Library buildings will be asked to put their used computer and bond paper into the folders, which will function as desktop sorters. From there, the paper will be emptied each day into intenne-diate containers, and finally into large bins for collection by the company. Proceeds from sale of the paper will make the effort self-supporting.

Stone says Tech already re­cycles used tires, batteries, and scrap metal, bringing in $10,000 to $15,000 a year.

The Environmental Forum of Georgia Tech is a student orga­

nization working on recycling efforts. The forum collects cans and bottles for recycling each week at a small area be­hind the Student Center, but hopes to gain a larger, perma­nent location to expand its campus efforts.

Although the amount of material recycled has been relatively small, forum mem­ber Steve Donkin believes the effort has raised campus awareness of environmental issues.

"There is a lot of interest out there," he says. "People are initiating their own recy­cling, starting it in their halls of the dorms."

Though most recycling fo­cuses on cans, bottles and certain papers, virtually all materials can be recycled if the market is there, explains Andrea Sussman, communica­tions director for the non-pro­fit National Recycling Coali­tion. Mostly, "it's a question of whether someone is doing it," she says. "Most plastics are recyclable, but few communi­ties now have plastic-recy­cling programs."

The varied demand for re­cyclable materials means re­cycling programs vary signifi­cantly from one region to an­other. If materials must be transported great distances to

a recycling plant, those trans­portation costs may make recycling uneconi >mical, Sussman notes.

Media attention focused on Earth Day, clogged land­fills, and other environmental questions have changed pub­lic opinion on recycling, leading many communities to initiate programs The most successful, she says, are those which pick up recyclables at the curbside.

What can citizens do to expand recycling efforts?

"We have to increase the demand for the L-nd products of recycling," she suggests. "Recycling isn't complete un­til we close the loop. Recy­cling is complete when a product made from recycled content is back out on the market being used.

Tax laws can be > hanged to favor recycled products, and governments can lake action to mandate re use. But in community recycling pro­grams, the efforts of each person can count.

"We hear a lot of people say there is no recycling in their community,' she adds. "The only reason is that no­body has started it II some­body started a program, other people would start par­ticipating in it."

2 0 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

Putting People First

Makes First Atlanta

Second ToNone.

FIRSTATIANTA n Second to None OFFICIAL SPONSOR

ALUMNI MAGAZINE

©1986 The First National Bank of Atlanta Member FD I C

Getting Computerphobia Out of the Workplace Written by Gary Goettttng

Steve Shelton encounters anxiety, fear and outright hostility on a weekly basis. His job title is systems group

manager, but he's also a psycholo­gist, confessor, teacher and salesman.

Shelton's work pushes the Com­puter Age into places where it often isn't welcome, and in the process he has become adept at dealing with an intractable byproduct of automa­tion—computerphobia.

"You can imagine what it's like to come in with your hot new comput­erized system to the 'good old boys' in a scale house who've been using a pencil and paper to do their work for the past 50 years," he laughs. Shelton, IMGT 76, works for Scale Systems Inc., a Norcross, Ga., com­pany that develops and installs scale-based data collection and process-control equipment throughout the Southeast.

Shelton says one of the first sys­tems he installed, in central Georgia, involved a classic battle.

"The scalemaster down there just fought me and fought me and fought me," Shelton remembers. "He was the oldest guy there and he was pet­rified of me. He was embarrassed—

he got nervous on the keyboard and he just wouldn't listen."

Finally, Shelton scheduled a Sun­day afternoon training session.

"He told me he didn't get any sleep Saturday night he was so wor­ried about this thing," Shelton laughs, "but he wasn't nervous when no­body else was around." Learning to use the new computer wasn't so dif­ficult after all, Shelton says. "It just took some personal attention."

Shelton's experience illustrates a problem for many businesses:

Despite 20 years of automation, a sizeable portion of the workforce is still afraid of computers.

While anyone who has st niggled with an incomprehensible software manual knows the frustration of do­ing a job within a job, the attitudes of computerphobics are rooted in fear and intimidation. They are afraid of the unfamiliar technology and in­timidated by the jargon. They are afraid they won't be able to master a computer, thereby creating a mental block that justifies the fear. Their competence is at risk, adding to the anxiety and fueling new concerns over job security.

2 2 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

"It's fear of the unknown, fear that they're going to lose their job or that it's not going to make their job easier," says Shelton.

No one knows how many com-puterphobics are out there: thou­sands, perhaps hundreds of thou­sands of workers whose high job-stress level is a direct result of their resistance, and inability to cope with, a sophisticated technology they do not understand. These people are sometimes difficult to identify in the workplace. Computers have made their lives more difficult—they work harder in an effort to hide their reluc­tance to use the technology.

A common type of computer-phobic is the person whose resis­tance is measured by the painfully long time he or she takes to grasp basic computer operations. These people strive only for the rninirnum competence necessary to do the job. They work through a computer, rather than with one.

"Most people who are on a com­puter probably use less than 20 per­cent of its capability," says Verlene Leeburg of Leeburg and Associates, a computer-training firm in Denver. "They learn what they have to in or­

der to get their job done, but never go back and learn anything else."

In re-defining their relationship to their job, these people deny an im­portant resource to the business: innovation. They do not attempt creative approaches to problems or seek new ways of doing things be­cause they are uncomfortable with computers. The potential of the tech­nology is wasted, and the em­ployee's professional development proceeds with glacier-like speed.

On the other hand, just as auto­mation is not appropriate for every job, computers are not the best an­swer for every worker. "Because it's such a wonderful technology, we have the impression that everyone should be on a computer to make him or her more productive, but that's not true," Leeburg asserts. "There are some people who will never understand them and should never, ever be on a computer."

The ability to become proficient with a computer is a learned skill, although—as with any other en­deavor—some people demonstrate more of a knack for it than others do. Nor is computerphobia strictly related to age. Most workers over 50

Continued page 24

GEORGIA TECH • Computerphobia 2 3

Most people on a computer use only about 20

percent of its capability

tend to be computerphobic, but their fear is more closely tied to longevity in the workplace. In fact, the likeliest candidates for computerphobia—the most likely to resist any kind of change—are long-time employees who have been at the same job or in the same department for a number of years, regardless of their age.

The work environment or corpo­rate culture also plays an important part in the occurrence of computer-phobia. In some companies, employ­ees are excited by change and are eager to exploit the opportunities it can create. In others, change is sur­rounded by fear.

Newly automated companies or ones still planning computerization are particularly vulnerable to com­puterphobia. In the case of the latter, the problem may be exacerbated if rumor is easier to come by than fact—again, the job-security issue.

Even businesses that have used computers for years—especially large organizations or those with high turnover—are likely to contain pock­ets of hard-core computerphobics.

American industry has pegged its future on a multi-billion-dollar invest­ment in hardware and software that it hopes will pay off with increased productivity.

The challenge for managers is to maximize the benefits from that in­vestment, and to eliminate computer-phobia from the workplace. There are several steps that can be taken:

• Training. After making a hefty outlay for hardware and software, management is often reluctant to spend money for training. Leeburg cites the extreme example of a large oil company that completely auto­mated one of its regional offices and

then said, in effect, "Here it is, use it. And by the way, we want everything done today." She says that she was called in to provide training at the company only after a staff member finally buckled under the intense pressure and committed suicide.

"I see a lot of people stressed out by this technology, and it's really sad," says Leeburg. "Sometimes man­agement thinks that if you can type, you can use a computer, which is not tme," she adds. "They don't want to spend the money on training be­cause they have no idea of what it entails to sit down and learn a soft­ware package."

Yet computer experts agree that the key to overcoming a fear of

computers is in training. Whether the training is conducted

by an outside firm or an in-house expert, sessions should be communi­cated in everyday language, not computerese, and should be tailored to the applications that will be used in that particular setting.

Shelton says that his company emphasizes two points at its training sessions: First, that you don't have to be able to type to operate a com­puter, and second, that nothing's go­ing to blow up if you hit the wrong key—the software will guide you through any errors.

They also use a "hands-on" ap­proach.

Continued page 26

Tech grad Steve Shelton pushes computer technology into places where it often isn't welcome. As a result, he has learned to deal with an intractable byproduct of automation—computerphobia.

2 4 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

GARY MEEK PHOTO

GEORGIA TECH • Computerphobia 2 5

Manager should stress how computerization benefits employees,

rather than the company.

"We'll show them a couple of keystrokes, but then we make them start hitting the keys," he says. "It takes about two days to change a guy from being petrified of a com­puter to being, well, at least not afraid of it. Within a couple of months, the fellow is just so proud of it that he wants to demonstrate it for other people."

• Employee Involvement. "If at all possible, you want your people to participate in the decision on what machines and software to get,'" ad­vises Dr. Hodges Golson, IM '67, president of Management Psychol­ogy Group in Atlanta. "There's a psy­chological principle that says partici­pation leads toward involvement, and involvement leads toward com­mitment."

Gaining the active cooperation of employees, instead of simply

their compliance, will result in a workforce more motivated to learn the new technology, Golson adds.

To that end, the manager's ap­proach should stress how computer­ization benefits employees, rather than how it benefits the company.

• Develop Incentives. "My pref­erence is for a set of incentives and positive rewards rather than punitive, negative measures, but both will work," says Golson. "You mighfset up a productivity contest—make it a social sort of thihg so there's a stigma to not becoming computer literate. Or you might try paying some people by the piece so those who learn the system and get docu­ments out quicker realize some fi­nancial benefit."

• Re-define work. Computers often make the old boundaries be-

Steve Shelton says that an important part of overcoming computer-phobia is to get the user to work the keyboard as quickly as possible.

tween jobs obsolete. When re-de­signing jobs and the distribution of work, the new jobs should be bal­anced and equally—or nearly equally—desirable. Office politics and turf wars can exacerbate existing problems with, and may even con­tribute to, computerphobia.

• Leadership. If top manage­ment sometimes seems oblivious to the problem of computerphobia, it's because many CEOs are terrified of computers.

"Sometimes, with executives, computerphobia is worse the higher up you go," says Golson. "They've got so much invested in being in control. When they sit down in front of a screen and realize they don't have the computer skills, they don't want to leam—they don't want to show any weakness."

Golson's observation is supported by a survey of 500 CEOs done last year by Personal Computing maga­zine. The poll found that only 21

percent of respondents used a com­puter either at home or at work, and that most members of that group spend less than an hour a day with a computer. CEOs age 50 and under are twice as likely to use a computer than those over 50, according to the survey.

Top management needs to dem­onstrate leadership by setting an ex­ample in overcoming computer­phobia. Corporate executives should demonstrate their willingness to commit the additional resources nec­essary to achieve full implementation of new technology, and to under­stand that patience is also a neces­sary ingredient for success.

Computers will remain an under­utilized resource for those businesses that do not address the issue of inter­action between people and technol­ogy. After all, chips and programs make a computer work, but its rela­tionship with a human operator is what makes a computer useful. •

2 6 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

Georgia Tech Bookstore

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ON THE COVER

A. Laser engraved walnut bookends. $27.95

B. Laser engraved walnut paperweight $7.50

C. Laser engraved walnut memo pad holder with pen. $21.50

D. Laser engraved walnut letter opener. $5.95

E. Laser engraved walnut clock $32.50

F. Laser engraved walnut plaque. $19.95

G. Laser engraved walnut business card holder $9.50

H. Laser engraved walnut pencil holder $9.50

I. Ceramic coffee mug. $6.00

J. "Dodd's Luck" book. $16.95

K. JanSport 95% cotton, ash gray sweat shirt with Alumni imprint. Adult sizes: S, M, L, XL$32.95. XXL-$33.95

L. Russell 50% cotton. 50% polyester navy blue sweat shirt imprinted with official seal. Adult sizes: S, M, L, XL. $21.95. XXL-$22.95 .

M. JanSport 50% cotton. 50% polyester white sweat shirt with Tech Tower imprint. Adult sizes: S, M, L, XL. $21.95. XXL-$22.95

N. Russell pro-cotton birch gray sweat shirt. Full athletic cut. Lycra gussets, side panels and trims Adult sizes: M, L, XL. $41.95. XXL-$42.95

O. Russell birch gray youth sweatshirt 50% cotton, 50% polyester. Youth sizes: S-6/8, M-10/12, L-14/16. $16.95

P. Russell birch gray youth sweat pants. 50% cotton, 50% polyester. Youth sizes: S-6/8, M-10/12, L-14/16. $16.95

Q. Russell navy youth sweat shirt. 50% cotton, 50% polyester. Youth sizes: S-6/8, M-10/12, L-14/16. $16.95

R. Russell navy youth sweat pants. 50% cotton, 50% polyester. Youth sizes: S-6/8. M-10/12, L-14/16. $16.95

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ABOVE

A. Gold 100% cotton tee shirt. Large Georgia Tech and Buzz imprint. Available adult sizes: M, L, XL. $10.95. Youth sizes: XS-2-4, S-4-6, M-10-12, L-14-16. $7.95

B. Black 100% cotton tee-shirt with "We don't fit the mold, we make it" imprint. Adult sizes: M, L, XL. $10.95

C. Gear for Sports iced gray 100% combed cotton split-tail tee shirt. Tech Tower imprint. Adult sizes: S, M, L, XL. $15.50

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E. Carolina Connection ash gray 100% combed cotton tee shirt with Georgia Tech in navy. Adult sizes: M, L, XL. $10.95

LEFT

F. White 100% pre-shrunk cotton tee-shirt. "Hoops" design. Adult sizes: M, L, XL. $10.95

G. Navy 100% pre-shrunk cotton tee-shirt with Buzz in circle.. Adult sizes: S, M, L, XL. $10.95

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A. Russell classic five-button birch gray premium-weight fleece cardigan. Adult sizes: S, M, L, XL. $26.95, XXL-S27.95

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D. JanSport 50% cotton, 50% polyester white sweat shirt with replica of Ramblin Wreck car imprint. Adult sizes: M, L, XL. $21.95, XXL-$22.95

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.<-F. Gear for Sports gray and white panel heavyweight poly-cotton sweat shirt with Tech Tower imprint. Adult sizes: S, M, L, XL. $29.95

RIGHT

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H. Golf club covers with Buzz logo. Set of three. $27.95

I. Divots embroidered yellow golf towel with grommet. $8.00

J. Putter cover with Buzz logo. $10.00

K. Imprinted golf balls. Set of three. $8.95 \

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G. Gear for Sports heavyweight poly-cotton sweat shirt. Speckled grey body with navy trim. Imprinted with Georgia Tech and seal. Adult sizes: S, M, L, XL.S28.95 H. Gear for Sports speckled gray sweat pant. No imprint. Adult sizes: S, M, L, XL. $26.95

I. Logo Motion white 50% cotton 50% polyester sweat shirt. Navy and gold Georgia Tech imprint with Buzz. Adult sizes: M, L, XL $18.95

BELOW J. Dakin's replica of Buzz. Georgia Tech's official mascot. Approximately 7 1/2" high. $10.00

K. Navy and gold cotton twill baseball cap embroidered with school mascot and name. One size fits all. $10.95

L. White or navy cotton twill baseball cap, embroidered with GT and Georgia Institute of Technology. One size fits all. $10.95

M. Navy wool blend baseball cap, embroidered with gold interlocking GT. One size fits all. $13.95

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t • V • t • t • t ' t ; t • t;. tSft't't't't't't't;.

ABOVE

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B. Rabbit Skins navy 50% cotton, 50% polyester fleece sweat pants with Jackets imprint on leg. Sizes: 2, 3, 4, 5/6, 7. $9.95

C. Gold and navy polyester cheerleader outfit with white turtleneck. Sizes: 2, 3, 4. 5. 6. $26.95

D. Imprinted small football. Shipped deflated. $8.95

ABOVE RIGHT

E. "My Very First Georgia Tech" tee-shirt with Buzz logo. 50% cotton 50% polyester. Pink or blue. Sizes: 6M, 12M, 18M. $6.95

F. Rabbit Skins terry cloth bib. $4.00

G. Imprinted Evenflo plastic baby bottle. $4.00

H. Newborn baby booties. $4.00

RIGHT

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P A G E S E V E N

The Ring You Left Behind is Still Available at the Geongia Tech Bookstore.

For information on your official Georgia Tech class ring by Josten s, send to the Georgia Tech Bookstore, 350 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0453.

JOSTENS A M E R I C A S C O L L E G E R I N G «•

• % " > v % v % V % V % T M %< % - • - •

LEFT

A. Georgia Tech Seal counted cross stitch kit. Frame not included. $10.95

B. Georgia Tech Tower counted cross stitch kit. Frame not included. $14.95

C. Georgia Tech Block T with Buzz logo counted cross stitch kit. Frame not included. $10.95

I N V E N T O R S F R O M T E C H Written by John Dunn • Photographed by Gary Meek

DREAM MAKES Faitn In the sunnner edition Q/GEOKGIA TECH ALUMNI MAGAZINE, we profiled a number < >/'inventions-created by Georgia Tech graduates and professo) s, and asked readets to tell us of others, the response has been so positive that we offer this f >llow-up.

Bloomfield's Robot

It's by no means Robo cor>—it's more like R2-D2 on patrol. John

Bloomfield's company lias invented a robot sentiy which roams the house at night looking for intruders, checking for gas leaks or for smoke, and is ready to sound an alami and call the polite.

Bloomfield, a 1977 in­dustrial engineering gradu­ate of Tech, is president of Bloomfield Research and I )e\ elopment in Hilton

Continued next page

John Bloomfield and his inventions: From vene-tian-blii id hooks to sentry rolxrts and voice-amplified gas masks, execution follows ideas.

GEORGIA TECH • Inventors from Tech: Part 2 2 7

T H E D R E A M M A K E R S P A R T I I

Bloomfield, like most practical inventors, wants to create products that not

only work, but are also affordable.

Head Island, S.C. His firm, staffed with 12 engineers, is a creative workshop with a lot of irons in differ­ent fires.

The robot, however, may become his most-pub­licized invention.

The NBC "Today" Show featured Bloomfield's pro­totype guardian robot in a five-minute segment. The robot has caught the atten­tion of other national news organizations as well.

Approximately the size of a portable vacuum cleaner, the robot can qui­etly patrol about the house or take its post monitoring a baby in a crib.

Bloomfield has used the robot prototype as a pool guard that signals an alarm inside the house if his five-year-old daughter strays into the area. The robot, which Bloomfield calls Securite, a roaming robot guardian, is being manu­factured by Samsung, the Korean electronics giant, and is scheduled for un­veiling at the Winter Con­sumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this January.

Bloomfield spent $1 million developing

the robot. "Our objective was not only to make a robot work, but make it affordable," Bloomfield says. "We're talking about selling it for $695 retail.

"I think it's going to take off like gangbusters.

This thing is really neat. In the evening or whenever, you turn it on and go to bed. It will roam all night long around your house. If it detects something wrong, it has a variety of outputs. It can beep by your bedside, it can sound a loud alarm, it can trigger an external loud alarm, it can call police with an auto-dialer. It's really amazing. It's like a sentry all night long.

"We know in the future we're going to have robots in the home and in the office," Bloomfield adds. "We think we might have the first one that really makes sense."

Bloomfield focuses most of his firm's energy into research and develop­ment. "We don't do any of the marketing or manufac­turing of anything we cre­ate ourselves," Bloomfield says. "Manufacturing saps your engineers of all their creativity. You find yourself constantly putting out fires in the manufacturing pro­cess, and you don't get to the creative part of it."

One of Bloomfield's most creative efforts may revolutionize the real-es­tate market. Bloomfield, in partnership with Qualex of Raleigh-Durham, N.C.— majority-owned by Fuqua Industries of Atlanta—has developed Digilist, a com­puterized, video multiple-listing system for real-es-

Bloomfield in his lab: Robots for everyone?

tate firms. Digilist will be unveiled

at the National Realtors Convention in New Orleans in mid-November.

"It is a very complex system with a lot of data managing and a lot of soft­ware," Bloomfield states. "What makes this unique is that there is nothing to remind anybody—the cus­tomer or the realtor—that it is computer based.

"There is no keyboard. We put everything into a small hand-held remote control. All the menus come upon the screen so they can dance through this thing. It's something they are familiar with, and they don't get locked tip with the computer mental­ity.

"There's a big 35-inch television screen, a CD player for background mu­sic, a VCR to record a ses­sion for the customer to take home and review later. It's got a tape driver

for downloading modems. "We developed a

system for Qualex labs as well, because the film will go to the Qualex labs and be digitized and captured and compressed there. It's a pretty sophisticated system."

Digilist will allow cus­tomers to preview homes on the market, pulling up available houses in the customer's price range that meet the customer's prefer­ences, with between 12 and 15 pictures per house.

"We've created a game out of it," Bloomfield ex­plains. A financial screen is available for mortgage and qualifying information, in­cluding a projection of monthly payments

"It's not so much a tool to sell houses as it is a tool to eliminate houses. When you eliminate, you elimi­nate a lot of time and driv­ing around."

With an $85,000 price tag, Bloomfield accepts

2 8 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

I N V E N T O R S F R O M T E C H

"/ owe a lot to Jerry Hittfor not being a bureaucrat, for seeing some potential in

me, and for allowing me the chance."

that Digilist is not for everyone "This is for the successful realtors who need to manage time and save time.''

Ano the r Bloomfield in-X J L vent ion—designed in partnership with ILC Do­ver, sole manufacturer of Skylab, Shuttle and Apollo spacesuits is a voice am­plifier for gas masks. The amplifier snaps into gas masks and projects a voice speaking at normal deci­bels to a distance of 100 meters.

The lour year-old pro­ject was rejuvenated due to the international crisis following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and concern over Iraq's previous use of chemical weapons, Bloom-field says. The U.S. military services, the Israelis and the Egyptians have all ex­pressed interest in acquir­ing the voice amplifiers, he says. In addition to military masks, designs for com­mercial masks with voice amplifiers would serve such purposes as fire-fighting.

Bloomfield has been an inventor since his boyhood days in Augusta, Ga.

"My first invention was when I was 14 years old— a little venetian-blind hook that I made for a penny and sold door-to-door for a dime," he recalls. The "S" shaped hook allowed the opening i >l the top or bot­

tom half of Venetian blinds, and an Augusta hospital gave him a large order. In a newspaper ar­ticle about him at the time, he expressed tin interest in attending Georgia Tech.

Bloomfield worked at tin Augusta airport in ex­change for flying lessons. He was soloing at age 15 ttnd received his pilot's license on the day he turned 16.

He dropped out of school and worked various jobs including crop dusting and construction before deciding tit age 21 to enter Georgia Tech.

Bloomfield camped in the office of Director of Admissions Jerry Hitt. He was admitted tis tt special student in the summer of 1973. "He told me, 'I'll give you tt chance. If you do a C average or better, we'll count that on your record and I'll admit you as a regular student.' He added, 'I'm going to watch you closely after that, too.'

"I owe ti lot to Jerry Hitt for not being a bureaucrat, for seeing some potential in me, and for allowing me the chance."

To pay his way through school, Bloomfield bought a machine for striping parking lots. "I started painting stripes because I could do that at 2 or 3 in the morning."

One of Bloomfield's larger customers told him

he wanted the parking lot sealed before it was striped and Bloomfield bid on the job.

"I didn't even know what the stuff was, but I found out vety quickly," he recalls. He figured ma­terial and labor cost and "everything it would take. I submitted a bid and got the job."

Bloomfield started do­ing sealing and paving jobs, hiring Georgia Tech students to spread the seal­ant at 50 cents per five-gallon bucket, about $5 an hour.

After Bloomfield handled a job for a leading restaurant in Buckhead, the manager contracted with him to handle valet parking. "I hired some guys at Tech, clean-cut guys with good manners. In the evening hours some of them were making $75 or $100 a night in tips." Word got around and soon Bloomfield had contracts to handle valet parking at six of Atlanta's finest res­taurants.

"At one time I had 200 Georgia Tech students working for me," Bloom­field says. When he gradu­ated, Bloomfield was earn­ing $36,000 a year and working 10 hours a week.

After graduation, he de­signed a customized houseboat which was the talk of Lake Lanier. Bloom­field also designed and

built the Chattahoochee National River Park, a two-year project.

For the next six months, Bloomfield, his wife, Debbie, and their daugh­ter, Carolina, "drove from Miami to New York look­ing for a place to light." They settled on Hilton Head Island, where Bloomfield designed a glass-bottomed boat.

During his wife's second pregnancy,

he came up with the con­cept of an Auculscope, a hand-held electronic diag­nostic device similar to a stethoscope. His research-and-development firm was founded in 1984 to de­velop the device, which has adjustable frequencies enabling doctors to selec­tively conduct a cardiovas­cular or diagnostic exami­nation by tuning into fre­quency sounds made by the body. Respiratory sounds, for example, are heard on a higher fre­quency than heart beats.

I t was the invention of a toy robot in 1986,

however, that brought Bloomfield his early finan­cial success. The robot, which sold for $10, was an electronic voice synthesizer that allowed kids to talk like a robot.

The toy took on a new purpose for a South Dakota man who lost his

Continued next page

GEORGIA TECH • Inventors from Tech: Part 2 2 9

T H E D R E A M M A K E R S P A R T I I

"We don't run around here trying to make a ton of money all the time. It's

nice to do it every once in a while."

larynx to cancer. When the man's $300 prosthetic device—which makes vibrations against the throat that can Ire shaped into words—quit operat­ing, he found the toy robot worked surprisingly well. That story was carried by the Associated Press and created a new demand.

"We redesigned the whole thing and made it a serious medical product, tooled up and marketed that," bloomfield says. "We're the only organiza­tion in the world now that has an inner-oral speech aid. We send them till over the world."

Bloomfield says a good idea does not neces­

sarily mean success. "The first tiling we start thinking about is how much is it going to cost to put it to­gether—to get it to a pro­

totype stage? And what about product liability? We've thrown a lot of good ideas in the trash can knowing that product li­ability Insurance would cost a fortune. We see a lot of good ideas for which there is just no way to get good, solid, proprietary protection—meaning some kind of patent protection,

"because of years of doing what we do and fall­ing into just about every pit-hole I could think of, we've learned the hard way. It took years and years to develop the net­work we now have. Net­work is the key word: People of different exper­tise and business relation­ships all over the world working to get something done successfully.

"A lot of things have to be considered to make a success out of something.

Carl Kah (seated) and Timothy Demming: Inventing a way to make "rain" when the rain doesn't falL

We are better at doing that because we have failed SO many times. When I want to know about somebody's talents, I ask them what they've failed at because they won't do that again. That's more valuable than success in many cases."

Bloomfleld says money is not his primary motiva­tion.

"We don't run around here trying to make a ton of money all the time. It's nice to do every once in a while. Hut we are con­cerned about money be­cause it enables us to con­tinue to do thi' things that we love."

The Rain Maker

Carl I.. C. Kah Jr., a 1953 chemical engineering gradu­

ate of Tech, is Florida's "rain maker." lie is presi­dent of EC-Rain Manufac­turing Corp., a company that manufactures sprin­klers, control timers, and valves for residential and commercial irrigation sys­tems. I le was selected as Florida's 198S Small-Busi­ness Person of the 'tear and represented the state in a Rose Garden cer­emony hosted by Presi­dent Reagan at the White House. A lifetime resident

of the Palm Beach County area, Kah returned there alter his military career and joined Pratt <S Whit­ney Aircraft, where he served as deputy program manager for the Air Force reusable rocket engine, the predecessor to the space shuttle engine.

While at Pratt N Whit­ney, he patented a con­cept for an irrigation sprin­kler system which he sold to Toro Corp.

In 1974, Kah resigned from Pratt & VX hilney to start his own company based on some < >l his 25 issued patents. Since then, Kah observes, K Rain has become Florida's largest manufacturer of irrigation equipment.

Silence Is Golden

Steve Walker, in­ventor of a modem noise filter, is a

electrical engineering jun­ior from San Antonio and president of Spinnaker De­velopment Group I lis product, the Digil'ilter, is manufactured by bALLCo Inc., of Snellville, Ga., which has a patent pend­ing. Walker is a student member of Tech's National Advisory board and is also active with Tech's olympic committee.

3 0 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

I N V E N T O R S F R O M T E C H

"U.S. industry and I missed a real opportunity to compete with the off-shore

electronics industry,"says Greneker.

Gene Greneker and Porta-Fone: The freedom of phoning and a private line, too.

A Private line

In 1969, a decade lx*-fore it became a household utility,

Gene Greneker developed and patented a prototype cordless telephone that he called the "Porta-Fone."

"Potential investors were not very imaginative," says Greneker, a principal re­search associate with the Georgia lech Research In-Stitute who received his master's degree from Tech in 1976.

The c< irdless telephone market mushroomed 10 years later, 1 mt it has a mar­ket claimed by imports, Greneker < >l >serves. It is estimated that one in every four American households will have at least one

cordless phone by the year 2000.

Greneker says he is dis­appointed that imports took over the market because "I l.S. industry and I missed a real opportunity to com­pete with the off-shore electronics industry."

Greneker, who still has live yeats left on the Porta-Fone patent and the line-seizing and signaling cir­cuits it employs, says his deviee offers something existing cordless phones do not—privacy.

'The market is now established and there scxrn will lx a new demand for a system with greater privacy against unauthorized moni­toring of conversations," Greneker says.

His Porta-Fone system, he says, is "ideal for use in the next generation of 'se­cure' cordless telephone

systems." because there arc-less than 10 frequencies allocated in the 49 MHz. band lor cordless telephone operation, often neighlx>rs can overhear each other's ' conversations using another cordless phone. Anyone using a "scanner" type monitoring system can lis­ten to any of the present-generation cordless tele­phones. Greneker notes that the Internal Revenue Service prosecuted a tax case using data gathered by monitoring portable tele­phone frequencies without having to obtain a court order for a wire tap.

Although Greneker's in­vention may yet pioneer a generation of "secure" cordless phones, it has al­ready obtained a place in history. The Smithsonian Institution has asked Greneker to donate his

patent model as represent.i live of the prototype of the cordless phone. Before he dix-s, however, Greneker says he is watching to see what the future may hold for his invention.

Chemistry Behind The Laser

The chemical laser is credited as being the brainchild of

Dr. Kurt E, Shuler, proles sor and former chairman of the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, San Diego.

Shuler, who has twice served on the Nobel Prize Nominating Committee for Chemistry, is a 1942 chem­ical engineering graduate erf Georgia Tech. He earned his doctorate from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and did postdoctoral work at Johns Hopkins University.

"As for chemical lasers," writes Alexander Kohn in his book, Fortune or Fail­ure, Missed Opf>ortuuities and Chance Discoveries, "the person whose mind was the hatching ground for this idea was Kurt E. Shuler, professor of theo­retical chemistry at La Jolla, Calif. In the period

Continued next page

GEORGIA TECH • Inventors from Tech: Part 2 3 1

T H E D R E A M M A K E R S : P A R T I I

Shuler theorized building a chemical laser. "But I obviously didn't build one. I didn't run

the mile in less than four minutes, either."

1950-65, Shuler had stud­ied the- rotational, vibra­tional and electronic exci­tation of product mole­cules resulting from the chemical reaction involv­ing combustion. He pub­lished some 50 papers on these subjects,

In 1965, Shuler, to­gether with K. A. Brueck-ner and W. K. Bennett, organized a symposium on chemical lasers, which at that time existed in con­cept only. In this sympo­sium, Shuler presented a paper co-authored by his junior colleagues, T. Harrington and J.C. Light, in which they summed up what was then known about the chemical reac­tions that might lead to excited products. Shuler listed six reactions that in­volved dissociative-excita­tion transfer, \i exchange reactions leading to vibra­tional excitation, and 15 reactions producing elec­tronically excited products, Many of these reactions have since been shown to yield operational chemical lasers.

Shuler says he was in­trigued about the concept of using chemistry to "drive a laser."

"My own research, to­gether with that of some of my co-workers, had been Involved in looking at energy distribution and chemical reactions.

"it was a rather obvious

idea to see if you could get what is known as popula­tion inversion in chemical reactions and check them, which is precisely the kind of research 1 was doing, from there, the next thing was to look and see what would be involved in mak­ing a chemical laser.

"I was certainly the first to organize a conference on chemical lasers and to discuss the possibility of making one. This was also before the four-minute mile had been run. I predicted in the introduction to the meeting that just as sure as anything, somebody would run the mile in less than four minutes and someone would build a chemical la­ser, I gave many examples of reactions that might lead to chemical lasers—essen­tially all of them did lead to a chemical laser.

"But since I am a theore­tician and not an experi­mentalist, I obviously didn't build one. I didn't run the mile in less than four min­utes, either."

Mr. Peanut Butter

Paul J. Mitchell is not a household name, but the prod­

uct lie "fixed" is. Mitchell, a 1958 chemical engineering graduate, is the- man who

Paul Mitchell and o n e of his millions of youthful admirers: Good taste and it's healthy, too.

invented both a "fix" and later, a process, for stabi­lizing peanut butter.

Mitchell has always had a knack for fixing things. As a boy growing up on a 100-acre cotton farm near Griffin, Ga., Mitchell found he could usually figure out a way to improve the op­eration of a contrary piece of farm machinery. He worked his way through Georgia Tech as a co-op student and after gradua­tion was employed by the du Font Chemical Co. in Wilmington, Del, The company acquired patents

on several of his inven­tions, including a perma-ncnt textile water repel lent compound In 1945, the National Peanut Council hired Mitchell as a research director to sta­bilize peanut butter, and he returned to Griffin.

Peanut butter manu­facturers were using hy-drogenated fats and oils in the preparation of pea­nut butter, resulting in peanut butter having an inconsistent quality and taste. Additionally, while on the store shell, the oil separated from the pea-

3 2 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

I N V E N T O R S F R O M T E C H

"The 'perfect' briquette came from this flash of solid engineering," says Li, "God was

good, I sowed the whole problem."

nut butter, by September, Mitchell had developed a process to make the hy-drogenatecl peanut oil into a liquid.

He patented the pro­cess and licensed it to Proctor and ciambic, which marketed it as a peanut butler "FIX." While the FIX produced a much higher quality of peanut butter, there were still in­consistencies.

Mitchell started his own lab in Griffin, and in 1948, he developed a process to stabilize peanut butter to a uniform consistency.

Unfortunately, Mitchell involved several outside organizations when pre­paring data lor a patent and his process fell into the public domain.

Mitchell, who became manager ol the Stowe-Wooclward Go. in Griffin, has patents on seven of his inventions, and another two do /en industrial inventions to his credit.

It is his process for sta­bilizing peanut butter, however, that has had a worldwide impact.

Instant Money

Fon I.i, a 1936 civil engineering gradu­ate of Georgia lech

and native of Canton,

China, is a man who dis­covered a secret that turned out to be a gold mine.

In the mid-1970s, Li relates, he discovered a process for recycling met­allized waste known as "fines"—high carbon chips no larger than 5 millime­ters —that results from the direct reduction process of ironmaking.

An employee of Miclrex Corp., he was assigned to assist Dr. Wolfgang Pietsch in the organization's Char­lotte, N.C., laboratory. "The problem was how to recycle these millions of dollars worth of waste." recalls I.i. "Here was a bril-limit doctor ol engineering and me, a pick-and-shovel CPU, trying to work out a research problem that was battling engineers in the U.S., Germany and Japan."

Waste "lines" readily re-oxidize and self-destruct. "Mother nature wants to put back the oxygen that man removed through the reduction process," Li says.

I.i and Pietsch were searching for a formula to make the waste material resistant to reoxidation, sale for transport, and capable of being made into re-usable briquettes.

After five months, I.i recalls, Pietsch went to Germany on busi­ness. "I kept work­

ing and working, and one morning, I was leaning on a shovel, spitting out dirt and thinking, there's some­thing unusual about this process.

"I realized it was more of a civil engineering problem than a metallurgi­cal problem. The perfect' briquette came from this Hash of solid engineering. God was good, I solved the whole problem."

Li's formula for binding results in briquettes thai are resistant to reoxidation and sale for trans­port, that cam be fed into an elec­tric arc fur­nace, and uti­lizes a "fines" as re­ceived with­out any waste. "We call it instant money— from

waste it goes back into the furnace and becomes a melt that is liquid steel. It's money in the bank."

I.i says the binder for­mula he discovered is a proprietary item with Mid-rex, which he promised not to disclose when he left the corporation in 1973.

I.i, who at age 80 lives in Glen Head, Long Island, N.Y., was 64 when he made his discovery. "It's not an invention," he says, "it's an application of a

civil engineering principle that I ac­

quired when I went to Geor­

gia Tec h." •

GEORGIA TECH • Inventors from Tech: Part 2 3 3

And NowThe Award For "Not Just ilunking About The Future, But Creating It..."

It all began with a vision. With an idea of what the future held.

And apian to turn that dream into reality... the reality of Technology Park/Atlanta. Of

Johns Creek. Of Lenox Park. You're looking at perhaps the only thing

our Master Plan didn't include: Winning the very first Governor's Award for Excellence in Real Estate in 1989. Our family of high-tech corporate tenants have always shared our vision. We hope they share our pride in accepting this award.

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A Seiko Quartz timepiece availaTyie for a limited time only. Featuring a richly detailed three^jTmensional re-creation of tfie"-—-=

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3 6 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

Georgia Tech's 'Mad' Scientist Craig Anderson is angry that kids don't learn enough science. His approach is stimulating, informative, captivating—and fun.

Written by John Dunn • Photographed by Gary Meek£- Margaret Barrett

"Kids are naturally interested in everything. They are interested in learning."

Craig Anderson is often asked by second- and third-grade students if he is a mad scientist. Anderson's that kind

of guy. He overpowers an audience with his enthusiasm for science, tech­nology and engineering while con­ducting attention-grabbing experi­ments, breezily relating scientific facts, inserting humorous anecdotes and explaining why Thomas Alva Edison wasn't really the "dweeb" he appears to have been.

And the audience—whether a civic club, high school students, or participants in a teacher workshop)— finds itself enthralled. This can't be science—this stuff is fun!

Anderson, a 1974 textile engineer­ing graduate, is nothing less than a crusader.

"We in America are experiencing a critical shortage of people choosing technology as a field," Anderson says. "My demonstrations show stu­dents how important technology is to our way of life. I try to excite them about technology and science.

"I also look at it from an eco­nomic sense. We know that students

Continued next page

Anderson entertains, enlightens and inspires students in Georgia Tech's SummerScape program, which gives seventh- and eighth-graders a fascinating look at science and technology.

Anderson uses a "tornado tube" to create a vortex, a natural phenomenon of spiraling wind or water that is an im­portant consid­eration in aero­dynamics, engi­neering and architecture.

GEORGIA TECH • Tech's "Mad"Scientist 3 7

M m

J C ^ v

f

"Engineering is the profession of taking science and putting it to work.... This is not only my pro­

fession, this is what I think is important in life. *

V

Anderson demonstrates a practi­cal application of technology with a beaker full of sodium acrylate,

are highly motivated when they think they can make a buck. In my demonstrations, I talk about people who have realized a large monetary return—people who have taken ba­sic science ideas and literally turned them into very handsome livings."

"If I can make a machine that makes twice as many pencils, I can make pencils cheaper. I can pay my people more and I can make more profit—everylxidy wins. That's why engineers are so incredibly imp< >rtant in society."

which absorbs 700 times its weight in water and is the main constituent of disposable diapers.

On this particular day, k Anderson is making I his presentation to "seventh and eighth graders participating in

Georgia Tech's SummerScape pro­gram. As the kids fill the seats in the physics building lecture room, Anderson takes center stage.

"When we talk about the schools of engineering here at Georgia Tech," Anderson begins, "there are none here to teach you how to drive a train." The kids laugh.

"Engineering is the profession of taking science and putting it to work," he continues. "It can be as elaborate as the space shuttle or as simple as mirrors."

He picks up a pair of parabolic-shaped mirrors. He is off and run­ning, taking the kids with him as he discusses the parabolic curve, illu-

Continncd next page

Ander­son uses

magnets and alurninurn tubes to dem­

onstrate scien­tific laws related

to magnetic fields. Students watch a neodymium magnet float down a four-foot aluminum tube. The magnet is the most powerful in the world for its size, and takes more than 10 seconds to descend.

GEORGIA TECH • Tech s "Mad" Scientist 39

"The teacher has to he excited—like, I am so happy to be here. Teachers do them­selves and everyone else a disservice when they tell their students, T hate this job.'"

sions, sound, satellites and the use of parabolic sound-dishes on the side­lines to make football more exciting for television viewers. He uses the parabolic mirrors to project a three-dimensional illusion: a piece of candy appears to float in mid-air. As the mirror is passed from child to child, fingers grasp at the illusion of floating candy.

"We're going to talk about poly­

mers," Anderson tells the now-ex­cited group of about 80 students. "We're going to talk about cryogen­ics. We're going to talk about magne­tism."

For the next three hours, Ander­son leads them through the wonders of science, making clouds, defying gravity, and having fun.

Anderson's presentations are so effective that students view him as something of a celebrity. Last year, just before Christmas break, he gave presentations for two weeks in South

Metro-Atlanta area schools. He and his wife, Pam, thought it

would be a good time to squeeze in some Christ­mas shopping, but when they went to Southlake Mall, they

were besieged by students of all ages who recognized him

and came dragging parents and friends in tow to meet him.

Anderson pushes a sharp­ened pencil through a

sealed sand­wich bag filled with water, but it doesn't leak.

He is demon­strating the con­

figuration of polymer mol­

ecules and how high-density polyethelyne

plastic, which is used to make some sandwich

bags, seals around punc­tures to remain airtight

"Some people gel paid $4 an hour and some people get paid $2,000 an hour. What's the difference 1 between the guy who flips hamburgers and the guy who operates on a tumor? You could hire somebody for $4 an hour to take (>ut the tumor. The trick is keeping you alive."

He has been a cham­pion of engineering, science and technol­ogy since receiving his undergraduate

degree. He was hired as a recruiter for the School of Textile Engineering, and convinced Dr. Denney Freeston to let him make science presenta­tions to generate interest among high school students. Later, Anderson and his wife operated a gift shop in Ma­con with such success that they be­came financially independent.

Two years ago, Mercer I Iniversity in Macon recruited Anderson to be an engineering-education specialist. Last year, the university was awarded a three-year grant by the National Science Foundation to encourage students to pursue careers in math

Continued next page

Anderson nails home a point about cryonics by using a banana dipped in liquid nitrogen.

< ,i:< >Ki HA TECH • •*!

4 2 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

"Myfirst day of graduate school, I was feverishly taking notes. About halfway through, the professor threw an eraser and beaned me right on the head Chalk dust went every­where. He said, 'Craig put that damned pencil down. Tloe name of the game now is to learn.... Listen to what I'm saying. Let's have a little interaction.'I thought, this is the way school should be taught from the beginning."

and science. Anderson works with science and math coordinators for school systems throughout the state of Georgia, holds teacher work­shops, and speaks to civic clubs and other organizations—at no charge. During the past two years, Anderson says he has given science presenta­tions to more than 100,000 people, approximately 67,000 of them high school students.

"I'm a promoter of the first order," Anderson says boldly. "I think stu­dents should study more science and mathematics because that's where the jobs are."

l-i

nderson is not offended when children ask him if

he's a mad scientist. But he marvels that at such

a young age children could already have such a strong misconception about scientists. Anderson goes about changing that misconception.

"Kids are naturally interested in everything," he says. "They are inter­ested in learning. I want them to know that by studying science, they can have the world by the tail." •

"Students should study more science and matliematics because that's where the jobs are."

A parabolic dish such as those used on the sidelines of a football game collects and amplifies sound. If the dish volume is set too high and is too close to the microphone, an ear-splitting squeal is pro­duced, much like fingernails scraped against a chalkboard.

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ALUMNI MAGAZINE

RESEARCH

Lost in the Ozone Again Major cities now have another rea­son to retain their trees and green spaces. Rising temperatures caused by the "urban heat island" effect— which is related to the loss of green space—may be boosting production of ozone-forming hydrocarbons in major U.S. cities.

Urban ozone pollution is pro­duced by a chemical reaction be­tween nitrogen oxides and hydrocar­bon compounds in the presence of sunlight.

In September 1988, a team of Georgia Tech scientists reported in Science that natural hydrocarbons from trees play a larger role than originally believed in creating the ozone pollution that plagues many U.S. cities, suggesting that control strategies aimed at nitrogen oxides might be more effective. At the time, critics argued that if the theory were correct, urban areas could control their ozone problems by cutting down their trees.

A follow-up study has found that reducing the number of trees in ur­ban areas may raise temperatures, promoting tin increase in the pro­duction of natural hydrocarbons.

The rising temperatures also speed up the photochemical reaction which produces ozone from hydro­carbons and nitrogen oxides, and boost the emissions of man-made hydrocarbons, primarily from the evaporatk >n < >f fuels.

"Observations indicate a strong link between urban ozone and tem­perature: When temperatures are high, ozone concentrations also tend to be high." said Dr. William Chameides. director of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences,

who co-authored the study with research scientist Carlos Cardelino. "Interestingly, there is also a link between hydro­carbon emissions and tempera­ture. When temperatures are high, both natural and man-made emissions of these com­pounds also go up.-"

Costly federally mandated emissions controls on motor vehicles and industrial sources theo­retically should have reduced hydro­carbon emissions in the Atlanta area by 50 percent over the past 15 years. That reduction, in turn, should have cut ozone concentrations.

But actual measurements of ozone show little or no decrease during that time. Chameides argued in the 1988 paper that the large vol­ume of natural hydrocarbons pro­duced by trees and other plants cre­ates a huge reservoir of the reactive chemical which is not substantially reduced by the controls on man-made hydrocarbons.

He believes ozone-control strat­egy may have to shift its focus to nitrogen oxides, the other side of the chemical reaction. Measurements in remote locations have found rela­tively low concentrations of naturally produced nitrogen oxides, suggest­ing that control of man-made sources of these compounds may be feasible, he said.

Limiting nitrogen oxides would require different pollution controls on motor vehicles, and new controls on large combustion sources such as electric power plants.

Chameides also believes that cit­ies must consider the environmental impact of future land-use decisions.

He believes cities should adopt strat­egies to retain tree cover, helping maintain air quality by limiting the extent of the urban heat island.

Robots Demonstrate 'Survival Instinct'

Instincts and reflexes of living creatures are providing the blueprint for a new generation of robots that could someday navigate hazardous waste sites, nuclear power plants, coal mines, deep seas, or even dis­tant planets, without remote-control assistance.

Using a model of the hormonal systems that control "fight-or-flight" decisions in mammals, researchers at Georgia Tech have demonstrated feasibility for a robot capable of making "instinctive" survival deci­sions such as seeking shade to cool internal systems or altering travel plans to save fuel.

Ultimately, the Tech group hopes to equip Georgia Tech's mobile au­tonomous architecture-driven ro­bot—"George"—with sensors ca­pable of transmitting infonnation about a variety of internal scenarios such as dangerous temperature lev­els or dwindling fuel reserves. Solu­tion options could then be pro­grammed into "receptor schemas"

Continued page 46

GEORGIA TECH • Research 4 5

RESEARCH Continued from page 45

linked to a subsystem that makes routing decisions.

In the past, many robots have been designed to make methodical decisions based on an elaborate rep­resentation of a particular environ­ment. But programming an entire "world" is complicated, and the ro­bot must sift through a great deal of irrelevant information before taking action. By studying the mammalian endocrine system and other biologi­cal models, scientists hope to learn exactly what cognitive events or vi­sual signals trigger and modulate particular movements.

The Machine Knows What You're Feeling

At Georgia Tech, researchers are studying the component of speech produced by the periodic opening and closing of the vocal cords at the upper part of the larynx. Called the "glottal waveform," this opening and closing provides excitation to gener­ate sound, which is then filtered by the vocal tract and shaped by the mouth and lips to form words.

The researchers ultimately hope to separate three components of speech: the word meaning, the iden­tity of the speaker, and the emo­tional state of the speaker. Filtering out the individual components could lead to better automated speech pro­cessing and synthesis techniques. An understanding of speech patterns could be the basis for a process to automatically translate emotionally charged speech into a standard form more easily recognized by machines.

System Pinpoints Video Pirates

When video pirate Captain Mid­night beamed his message of protest

into the Home Box Office satellite trans­mission system four years ago, company officials had no effective way of determining where the signal was originating.

Engineers at Georgia Tech have developed a system for pinpoint­ing the location of ground sta­tions that interfere with satellites, using a variation of techniques long used for radio navigation.

The new Satellite Interfer­ence Location System (SILS) should help satellite operators more quickly locate the source of accidental satellite interference, as well as any future Captains Midnight

The system could theoretically produce accuracy to within a frac­tion of a mile, but its real accuracy depends on the strength of the inter­fering signal and the amount of noise present.

The system uses a "time differ­ence of arrival" technique to infer the longitude of the ground station, and an interferometric technique to learn its latitude.

Finally, the system uses computer analysis techniques to display the potential location on a terrestrial map.

Though Captain Midnight gained considerable notoriety for his action, most satellite interference problems occur when transmitters are turned on accidentally, or when antennas are not properly aimed.

Plastic Blocks Are No Longer Child's Play

As the nation's steel bridges and water mains continue to deteriorate, scientists at Georgia Tech are assess­ing the strength of fiber-reinforced

plastics to see if these strong, non-corrosive composites are suitable for rehabilitating aging infrastructures.

Roughly one-fourth the weight of steel, fiber-reinforced plastic could potentially lower transportation and construction costs while speeding the development of new bridges, water systems, emergency shelters or warehouses.

Various lengths of fiberglass I-sections are being tested in the School of Civil Engineering's hydrau­lic pressing instrument, which is ca­pable of applying 450,000 pi >unds.

Research began in September last year, and results from an analytical phase of the project have been promising. Using strain gauges and other instruments, the short-term responses of I-sections compressed to the failure stage are measured. To determine the long-term load capac­ity and deflection responses of fiber-reinforced plastic, researchers will perform additional tests on compo­nents subjected to compression for 18 months. •

4 6 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

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Chemical Vapor Deposition With Low-Vapor-Pressure Reactants By Robert J. Kyle

Chemical vapor deposition of films has become a

widely used industrial technique for production of specialized materials. Some of the most impor­tant chemicals used have low vapor pressures, espe­cially those used to make high-temperature super­conducting films. These reagents have proved par­ticularly difficult and ex­pensive to deposit, and the speed of deposition had been awkwardly slow.

A new development which overcomes many of the low-vapor-pressure limitations has been re­ported by Dr. Jack Lackey of the Georgia Tech Re­search Institute's Energy and Material Sciences Laboratory of the Materials Sciences Division. This invention improves the speed of deposition of these important materials by nearly two orders of magnitude. It dramatically improves the economic potential for commercial production of high-tem­perature superconductors and other materials utiliz­ing low-vapor-pressure reagents.

The process has been successfully demonstrated in several hundred labora­tory runs, and it has even been used to produce su­perconducting wire as well as to deposit films on vari­ous other substrate con-f i g u r a t i o n s .

The invention utilizes pneumatic powder-feeding techniques to inject quanti­ties of the reagent powders in a hot-walled furnace where they are vaporized and react to form the su­perconducting compound on the substrate.

Existing commercial techniques necessitate careful, simultaneous con­trol of temperature, pres­sure and flow rate for each reagent. Compared to present practices, the in­vention provides less waste of reagents at faster deposition rates with sim­plified equipment and con­trols.

A U.S. patent application is pending.

Semkxmductor Electron Wave Devices

4 n entirely new class of i l L semiconductor de­vices has been proposed

by Georgia Tech electrical engineering professors Drs. Thomas Gaylord, Elias Glytsis, and Kevin Brennan. These devices, which were first revealed in October 1988, hold the potential to be the "next generation" of electronic circuitry. Research at Georgia Tech indicates that such circuits can be re­duced to about one one-hundredth the size of cur­rent circuits. Even more significant, simulations have revealed switching times on the order of 100 femtoseconds, i.e., 0.0000000000001 seconds. This switching speed cor­responds to an operating frequency of 10,000 giga­hertz (ten thousand billon cycles per second).

As the size of electrical circuits has been reduced, conventional semiconduc­tor devices have been plagued by quantum-me­chanical wave effects— internal interference effects which result from the bal­listic nature of electron flow. Designers have had to either avoid or compen­sate for these effects.

The neve inventions uti­lize these wave phenom­

ena to treat electrons in ways analogous to pho­tons—reflection, refraction and interference are used to create devices that are similar to optical devices used with light. The result is guided electron-wave devices which operate at high speed and allow opti­cal-like parallel processing.

Devices currently under study include high-fre­quency oscillators, switches, electron waveguides, electron emit­ters, modulators, deflectors, filters, beam splitters, lenses and diffraction grat­ings.

U.S. and foreign patent appli­cations have been filed.

This article describes new technology developed at Georgia Tech and which is currently available for li­censing. Additional infor­mation on the technology described here can be obtained by letter or phone to Barry Rosenberg. Office of Technical Sen ices, (404) 894-6287.

4 8 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

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The Coior ofMoney Written by Lisa Crowe

Charles A. Muench never meant to make it as a high­flying entrepreneur. When he

received his B.S. in engineering from Tech back in I960, he assumed he'd be a company man just like every­one else.

"We didn't have much of an en­trepreneurial spirit back then," Muench says. "The goal was to go out and work for a big company."

But instead of punching a time clock as a salaried employee, , Muench is cutting international distri­bution deals as the founder, chair­man and president of Colorocs, a thriving Atlanta-based color copying firm.

Muench's first business venture was the inadvertent result of an in­vention—a computerized energy-management system for utilities that

he designed while working on a Ph.D. at Tech.

"I got dragged into my first com­pany by accident," Muench admits. "I was just tinkering around, but when people saw the product, they wanted to use it."

When Muench drummed up $337,000 from LaSalle Street Capital, then the major owners of the Atlanta Braves, he abandoned his thesis— and a job at Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. in Marietta—to start up Integrated Systems in 1967. Five years later, the company was sold for $1 million.

In 1973 Muench founded another Atlanta company—Intelligent Sys­tems—that made color CRT termi­nals. The company went public seven years later and acquired half-a-dozen divisions, including a British

The Muench File • i960: Graduates from Georgia Tech, • 1964: Receives master's degree in electrical engineering from the

University of Florida. • 1967: Starts Integrated Systems Inc. • 1973: Founds Intelligent Systems Corp. • 1980: Founds I'rintaColor Inc. to manufacture and market color-

printer terminals anil Color Graphics Inc. to make four-color Lithographic equipment.

• 1981: Named F.ntrcprcneur of the Year by Atlanta alumni chapter of Stanford,I Iniversity.

• 1982: Founds Colorocs Inc. • 1983: Named High Tech Entrepreneur of the Year by the Atlanta

High lech Venture Capital Conference, • 1983: Named to Tech's National Advisory Board. • 1985: Joins Advisory Board of Tech's School of Electrical

Engineering. • 1985: Resigns from Intelligent Systems to serve as CEO of Colorocs.

J

branch, before Muench sold out in 1985.

The success of his first two com­panies proved Muench's business acumen, but Colorocs is the venture that could make him a major inter­national high-tech player.

During the first year of shipments, starting in June 1989, Colorocs cor­nered 20 percent of the color copier market and sold 5,600 of its S 17,000 machines. Third quarter revenues for the three months ending June 30 were up 2,000 percent from the same period a year ago—from $635,000 to $13.5 million.

Print shops comprise 80 per­cent of the current color copier market, but Muench

predicts that eventually almost every­one will be drawn to color copying.

"The point will come—fix >m a business standpoint—when color will be necessary," Muench said. "Color adds spice to life; it's an at­tention-getter.

"It's like black and white versus color television; how many people watch black-and-white TV?"

If Muench is right, the potential for company profit is astronomical. Only one percent of the color copier market uses color copiers, and Colorocs' revenues are already soar­ing.

In anticipation of a burgeoning market, Muench holds 15 patents for color copiers and is developing a smaller copier priced under $ 10,000 that should be ready to sell by 1992.

Although color copiers supply the bulk of Colorocs' business, the com­pany recently released a color printer for $30,000 and Muench is

5 0 GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990

Tech's Muench: A successful entrepreneur by accident and inclination.

developing a less-expensive model, also scheduled for release in 1992.

Muench is modest about his busi­ness abilities, but he does admit to a talent for predicting the future.

"If I have a good trait, it's recog­nizing a market opportunity that doesn't yet exist," Muench says.

When Muench started working on color copiers back in 1982, few

l-i

people even imagined the possibility of reproducing a color brochure or photograph. It was a strictly black-and-white world; still, Muench thought the idea worthy of seven expensive years of research and de­velopment.

Muench's wife and four daughters share his faith in his forecasting abili­ties.

"My wife worked for all my com­panies and funded $200,000 in start­up money for Colorocs," Muench reports. "My daughters are also big investors in the company."

Keeping ahead of a rapidly grow­ing business keeps Muench away from his family home in Naples, Fla., and traveling much of every week. In response to explosive sales, he has rapidly opened eight American Colorocs branches, with three more due to-open this fall; one Canadian branch; five Australian branches; and distribution systems in Europe and Asia.

The travel is hectic, but Muench enjoys the wheeling and dealing.

"How deals work is more exciting than tinkering, although I still try to do a good deal of tinkering," he says.

Muench would like to see more Tech students pursue independent business ventures.

"I'm a big promoter of teaching students how to go into business for themselves," Muench says. "If you start a company, then take it public, everyone ends up very wealthy, and the engineers tend to put some of that money into the next generation of high-tech companies." •

Lisa Crowe is a free-lance writer work­ing in Atlanta.

GEORGIA TECH • Profile: Muench 5 1

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